U.S. patent number 7,379,990 [Application Number 10/713,905] was granted by the patent office on 2008-05-27 for distributed virtual san.
Invention is credited to Sheng (Ted) Tai Tsao.
United States Patent |
7,379,990 |
Tsao |
May 27, 2008 |
Distributed virtual SAN
Abstract
The distributed virtual SAN infrastructure provides a plurality
of host systems with a scalable dynamic expandable distributed
virtual storage pool, which includes a virtual storage automatic
construct protocol. The distributed virtual SAN infrastructure
includes one or more IP SAN units, the management console, the
distributing control management station and the network
infrastructure, wherein the network infrastructure provides the
communication links between all systems in this distributed virtual
SAN.
Inventors: |
Tsao; Sheng (Ted) Tai (San
Jose, CA) |
Family
ID: |
33300341 |
Appl.
No.: |
10/713,905 |
Filed: |
August 12, 2002 |
Prior Publication Data
|
|
|
|
Document
Identifier |
Publication Date |
|
US 20040215749 A1 |
Oct 28, 2004 |
|
Current U.S.
Class: |
709/223; 709/225;
709/220 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F
16/182 (20190101); H04L 67/02 (20130101); H04L
41/12 (20130101); H04L 41/0813 (20130101); H04L
67/16 (20130101); H04L 67/1097 (20130101); H04L
41/0806 (20130101); H04L 41/0213 (20130101); H04L
41/082 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
G06F
15/173 (20060101) |
Field of
Search: |
;709/220,225,223 |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Primary Examiner: Cardone; Jason
Assistant Examiner: Mirza; Adnan
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Wu; James
Claims
The invention claimed is:
1. A method of web-based out-band accessed central controlled
distributed scalable virtual SAN for providing unlimited storage
volumes on-demand and storage sharing, comprising: a) the control
management software of control station collecting storage
information from one or more unlimited SAN units based on a
proprietary distributed virtual SAN automatic cross-domain
configuration protocol of this invention to form virtual SAN
storage pool; b) the console support software of control station
organizing and converting the information of virtual storage pool
into presentable web-format, which is transmitted to and is
displayed in browser of storage management console; c) the console
support software and control management software of control station
providing privileged user from web-browser on management console of
console hosts to select the management objects of any IP SAN unit
in virtual SAN storage pool and its associated storage devices,
storage volumes, or network cards and status, any host system and
its associated devices and status, control station, its associated
devices and status, and spared IP SAN units or spared hosts for
managing and monitoring; and d) the console support software work
together with control management software of control station
providing two models of accepting storage volume requests from
hosts and further providing each host with unlimited storage
volumes whenever it requires.
2. The methods of claim 1, wherein a) the said protocol sequence
for automatic constructing virtual storage pool of distributed
virtual IP SAN includes 1) when any of IP SAN units booting up, its
service software of SAN sending out a "SAN unit (n) startup" packet
to distribute control management station, which includes IP
address, network cards, and system name of SAN unit (n); and 2)
when distribute control management software of control station
receiving IP SAN unit (n) packet or it detecting a communication
link being up again after the link being down, it storing the IP
SAN unit (n)'s information into memory, disk or both on control
station and then sending back a "need SAN unit (n)'s storage info"
packet to IP SAN unit (n); 3) when SAN service modules on IP SAN
unit (n) receiving the packet of "need SAN unit (n)'s storage
info", it getting storage information on IP SAN unit (n), and then
sending back a packet of "unit (n) storage info", which includes
all information of storage device and current associated storage
volumes information, to distribute control management station; 4)
after receiving "unit (n) storage info" packet from IP SAN unit
(n), the distribute control management modules on distribute
control management station updating its stored IP SAN units with
corresponding storage information of IP SAN unit (n) from
packet.
3. The methods of claim 1, wherein a) the said protocol sequence
for updating storage pool of distributed virtual SAN when any IP
SAN unit shuts down or communication link is down, further
includes: (1) whenever any IP SAN unit (n) shutting down, the
service module of IP SAN unit (n) sending "Unit (n) shutdown" to
distribute control management station; and (2) after received "unit
(n) shutdown" packet from IP SAN unit (n), or detected the
communication link being down between said IP SAN and control
station, the distribute control management software modules on
control station updating the stored information for that specific
of IP SAN unit (n) and for the distributed IP SAN virtual storage
pool.
4. The method of claim 2, further includes the "unit (n) storage
info" in packet including the number of storage volumes, each
volume's start address (logical block address, LBA), volume size,
and the end address (logical block address, LBA) of each volume,
storage media type, IP SAN unit's IP addresses and its associated
network cards information; and the startup packet being a very
simple UDP packet with a "system startup message" or a SMNP cold
start packet and the said control management software of control
station detecting the different startup packet of different
protocol.
5. The method of claim 3 further includes said "shut-down" packet
being a very simple UDP packet with a "system down message" or a
SMNP cold start packet and the said control management software of
control station detecting and recognize the different startup
packet of different protocols.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein a) further includes, (1) "Virtual
SAN automatic configuration protocol" being an UDP/TCP/IP based
protocol or any suitable IP based protocol with same protocol
scenario and sequence for boot-up and shut-down and further
controlling the capacity of virtual SAN storage pool dynamically
adding or removing IP SAN units depending on the storage needs of
said hosts; and (2) all packets of said proprietary protocol taking
the advantage of IP address, which reaches to any point on the LAN
or cross-domain Intranet, even Internet.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein b) further includes, (1) the web
presentable formation being HTML, XML, WML and depending on the
connection link and associated protocols between control station
and the system of storage management console; and (2) the said
associated protocols of HTML, XML, WML being HTTP, SOAP, WAP.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein c) further includes that, (1) the
support of management console of this distributed virtual SAN
provides web-based centralized management for all IP SAN units,
control management station and hosts to perform tasks of storage
configuration, storage volume creation, allocation and assignment,
merge and split, storage partition and repartitioning, resources
and processes monitoring for storage, network and all hosts; and
(2) with multiple concurrent tasks supporting in console support
software modules of control station, each privileged user from the
web-management console takes benefit of issuing multiple
simultaneous concurrent system operations and tasks.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein d) further includes a method of
unlimited storage volume distribution, which comprises: each
service software module of host sending a request for a storage
volume with a specific size to console support software of control
management; console support software together with control
management software of control station storing the received
requests coupled with the information of said each host into memory
or disk storage or both on control station, and search its virtual
storage volume pool to find a matched storage volume on a IP SAN
unit; after finding a right storage volume on a specific IP SAN
unit for said request and validated that a corresponding said host
being authorized to access the storage volume on said specific IP
SAN, the said control software on control station send the said
requests and the corresponding information of said each host to
each said specific IP SAN; after each party receiving required
information, each said host and each corresponding said IP SAN unit
initiating negotiation and further for direct access to avoid said
control station to be a bottleneck for data accessing and hence to
allow the control station to dedicate handling host storage
requests and continuing to update, maintain and manage virtual
storage volume pool.
10. The method of claim 9, further includes that a. the storage of
each said IP SAN unit in virtual storage pool is configured and
partitioned with multiple volumes and to be assigned to multiple
hosts; b. with support of service modules on each said IP SAN unit,
multiple hosts each assigned with different volumes on a same IP
SAN unit and each host exclusively accessing assigned volumes on
the same IP SAN unit simultaneously without interrupt each other;
and c. with said support of services modules on host, each hosts
being assigned with volumes from different IP SAN units and for
further accessing.
11. The method of claim 6, wherein (2) further includes that the
operation of distributed IP SAN infrastructure in cross network
domains environment allowing any IP SAN unit (including mirrored or
spared) or any host (including spared) and control management
station is anywhere on corporate Intranet, on Internet or on
LAN.
12. The method of claim 1, wherein c) further includes (1)
web-based distributed virtual SAN infrastructure providing multiple
hosts each with a pair of mirrored IP SAN units; and (2) web-based
distributed virtual SAN infrastructure keeping ratio of spared IP
SAN unit.
13. The method of claim 1, wherein a) further includes: (1) each IP
SAN unit containing the storage media, which are magnetic disk
drive, optical disk drive, solid state disk drive, or memory cards
and the related storage control media; and being in the form of
RAID, JBOD; (2) coupled with the network connection media, which
could be the controller of Ethernet; (3) running with operating
system which is Linux, Unix, MS Window, or real-time OS; and (4)
containing IP SAN services software modules, which is able to
provide management services to distribute control management
station through IP based or non-IP based protocols, and to provide
block data service to one or more hosts through IP based
communication protocols.
14. The method of claim 13, further includes, (1) a Fiber Channel
Based SAN unit appearing as an IP based SAN; and (2) fiber Channel
based SAN containing Fiber Channel.
15. The method of claim 1, further includes that, (1) the control
station is a server or a host, which is a server, a desktop, a
laptop system, or a handheld device with memory, storage media,
network communication components, CPU and capable to running
software applications; and (2) running with operating system which
is Linux, Unix, MS Window, or real-time OS.
16. The method of claim 1, further includes that (1) the software
modules of web-based distributed virtual SAN includes console
support software modules, web server software modules and control
management software modules on control management station, the
service software modules on IP SAN unit, and the service software
module of the host; and (2) the said web server software is a
software on the marketing or a proprietary web server software
wherein all software modules of web-based virtual SAN are being
implemented with C, C++, Java, or XML; and (3) each software module
supports IP based or non-IP based communication protocols depending
on the needs and nature of communication link; and (4) said
software modules are complied into binary model and are packed into
software installation media of CDROM, DVD-ROM, memory card or
transmitted cross network to target system for installing on either
control station, IP SAN unit, or host.
17. The method of claim 16, further include that software modules
used in web-based out-band accessed distributed virtual SAN
infrastructure is a web-based operating system.
18. The methods of claim 1, further include that (1) the web-based
out-band virtual SAN is a central controlled distributed virtual
machine (CCDSVM); (2) the "Virtual SAN automatic configuration
protocol" applied to various web-based out-band CCDSVM in forming
multiple different type of resource pools or application service
pools for unlimited on-demand application; (3) the IP SAN units in
"Virtual SAN automatic configuration protocol" are replaced by web
server, video server, file server, security monitoring server, or
database server unit; and (4) these different type of application
service pools or resource pools of the distributed virtual machine
have dynamic capacity expanding, scalability, performance, disaster
recoverability, security, centralized management.
19. The method of claim 1, wherein c) further include that said
out-band web-based virtual SAN managing two groups of server
systems, the IP SAN units and host systems through web-browser; the
group of host systems are capable of constructing a hosts pool with
proprietary "Virtual SAN automatic configuration protocol"; and as
matter of the fact that more groups of systems can be formed
through same methods and to be managed from same web-based
management console.
20. The method of claim 9, further include that (1) the console
support software also provides admin staff from storage management
console to manually assigning storage volumes to hosts; (2) any
specific storage volume of any IP SAN unit exclusively manually
assigned to a specific host as long as admin staff acknowledge any
host there is such needs; and (3) assigning information of the host
to said IP SAN unit; and (4) after each party receiving required
information, each said host and each corresponding said IP SAN unit
initiating negotiation and further for direct access to avoid said
control station to be a bottleneck for data accessing.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to computer communications
network. More specifically, the present invention relates to web
based data storage systems.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Today's corporate IT professionals typically face many challenges
to handle the ever increasing information and data. To handle large
amount of data, many organizations expand their storage capacity by
employing manage storage systems locally in order to maintaining
their normal business operating. A conventional approach is to use
IP based network attached storage ("NAS"), which effectively
provides data storage and services for end users. Moreover, at the
enterprise level, the majority storage systems are directly
attached or connected to server(s) or host(s) as shown in FIG. 7.
These server(s) and/or host(s) are typically used as raw block data
devices through conventional communication connection media, such
as traditional IDE, SCSI, Fibre Channel, or Ethernet.
The server, which is directly attached to a storage system as
illustrated in FIG. 7 typically has many drawbacks, which are
described as following:
a) a typical conventional storage management system is only capable
of handling 4 TB (terabytes) of data, which is usually not good
enough for a typical enterprise storage management system;
b) The most of servers, which are directly attached to storage
systems, have problems for further expanding their storage
capacity. For example, it may require to purchase new servers in
order to increase storage capacity;
c) The storage being attached to a server can only be accessed by
the attached server and can not be shared by other servers even if
server's storage availability is not evenly distributed across all
servers within a organization;
d) Each attached storage system has to be managed separately and
this is a nightmare for IT professionals;
e) With the attached storage system, the backup/restore has to go
through the data network, this will tax or reduce the network
performance;
f) a typical SCSI connection only allows a 12-meter distance for
data accessing with 15 storage devices. Similarly, Fibre Channel is
limited to 10 kilometers communication distance. Distance
limitation effectively prevents them from being the best choice for
disaster recovery of the storage system; and
g) The Fibre Channel based storage system cannot handle well for
the interoperability. Also, Fibre Channel based storage system is
expensive to build and to maintain.
FIG. 8 shows a conventional type of virtual SAN, which is in-band
controlled and accessed with which the data path from hosts (1 of
FIG. 8) to the SAN units (4 of FIG. 8) going through virtual SAN
control management station (2 of FIG. 8). It is not efficient in
term of accessing the data by the hosts because the virtual SAN
control management station can easily be a performance bottleneck.
Similarly, the scalability of this type of virtual SAN is poor.
SUMMARY
With rapid development of high speed communication technology, the
problems mentioned above can be solved by an IP based out-band
accessed distributed virtual SAN infrastructure (FIG. 1) of this
invention. With this invention, each host (1 of FIG. 1) can
directly access IP based SAN units (4 of FIG. 1) without going
through control management station (3 of FIG. 1). The IP based
out-band accessed distributed virtual SAN infrastructure (FIG. 1)
actually represents an example of central controlled distributed
scalable virtual machine system (CCDSVM) (FIG. 9). Wherein, each
system units actually is a SAN unit (4 of FIG. 1), specifically is
an IP based SAN unit.
With this invention, each SAN unit (4 of FIG. 1) can be accessed by
one or more hosts (1 of FIG. 1) and each host can access one or
more SAN units (FIG. 6). In addition, the storage accessing goes
directly through communication link (2 of FIG. 1) between hosts (1
of FIG. 1) and SAN units (4 of FIG. 1) without involvement of the
control management station (3 of FIG. 1). Further, the SAN units (4
of FIG. 1) can be dynamically added without interrupting normal
data accessing from hosts (1 of FIG. 1) and are controlled,
monitored, and managed by a control management station (3 of FIG.
1) through a management console (10 of FIG. 1). The control
management station (3 of FIG. 1) may also accept storage
volume/partition requests from each host (1 of FIG. 1), and assign
the matched volumes/partitions of SAN units (4 of FIG. 1) to these
hosts. Therefore, each host (1 of FIG. 1) could directly access the
right volumes/partitions of assigned SAN units without going
through the control management station again.
This invention will become understood with reference to the
following description, claims, and accompanying figures.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The present invention will be understood more fully from the
detailed description given below and from the accompanying drawings
of various embodiments of the invention, which, however, should not
be taken to limit the invention to the specific embodiments, but
are for explanation and understanding only.
FIG. 1 illustrates a distributed virtual storage area of network
("SAN") infrastructure in accordance with one embodiment of the
present invention;
FIG. 2 illustrates actual Components of Distributed Virtual SAN in
accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 3 illustrates Virtual SAN Automatic Configuration Protocol in
accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 4 illustrates a Virtual SAN Auto Configuration Protocol Packet
format in accordance with one embodiment of the present
invention;
FIG. 5 illustrates an Example of Storage Volume Information of an
IP SAN Unit in accordance with one embodiment of the present
invention;
FIG. 6 illustrates a hypothetical example of Storage Volume
Requests and Assignment in accordance with one embodiment of the
present invention;
FIG. 7 is a conventional Direct Attached Storage System;
FIG. 8 is an In-Bound Accessed Virtual Storage System;
FIG. 9 illustrates a Simplified Diagram of Central Controlled
Distributed Scalable Virtual Machine System in accordance with one
embodiment of the present invention, and
FIG. 10 illustrates a Simplified Diagram of Disaster Recovery
Scheme of Distributed Virtual SAN Infrastructure in accordance with
one embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
The following terms are used through out this patent application to
describe the present invention. A central controlled distributed
scalable virtual machine ("CCDSVM") system allows a control
management station to control a group of systems and to provide
distributed services to client systems over the Intranet, Internet,
and/or LAN environment. Storage media includes magnetic hard disk
drives, solid state disk, optical storage drive, and memory card
etc. Storage connection and control media may include controller of
IDE, SCSI, Fibre optical, Ethernet, USB, or wireless media, and/or
other related cables etc. Each controller of storage media such as
Raid, IDE, or SCSI controller may control multiple storage media
drivers on a system. Storage system includes one or more storage
media devices, storage connections, and/or storage media
controllers. Storage system also contains related software modules
for delivering storage services.
Storage area network ("SAN") is a storage system that is capable of
providing block data services to various computer hosts through
storage connection media, such as Fibre-optical cable, Ethernet
cable or Internet Protocol ("IP") based connection media protocol
or non-IP based connection media protocol. The non-IP based
connection media protocol, in one example, includes Fibre-Channel.
IP SAN uses IP based protocol to provide storage raw block data
services. All discussions of SAN in this invention are within the
scope of a model of central controlled distributed scalable virtual
machine ("CCDSVM").
DNS stands for domain name server of network technology. DNS is an
Internet software infrastructure and is capable of identifying
network addresses for its peer systems. For example, the network
addresses may be used to communicate with the peer systems. A
Simple Network Management Protocol ("SNMP") is a standard Internet
protocol. A SNMP trap is a user datagram protocol ("UDP") packet,
which may be used to send the SNMP daemon on a SNMP agent system to
a SNMP network management station via network links.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a simplified block diagram of IP based
out-band accessed distributed virtual SAN infrastructure. The
distributed virtual SAN infrastructure includes multiple hosts (1),
network infrastructures (2), a control management station (3),
virtual storage pool (11) having multiple IP SAN units, and a
management console (10). In one embodiment, each host (1):
contains service software modules (9). The service software modules
(9) are configured to communicate with a control management
software module (7) of a control management station (3) for storing
information on a specific IP SAN unit (4). It also communicates
with service software modules (6) of IP SAN unit (4) to retrieve a
block of data from SAN units (4). The service software modules (9)
can be coded or implemented with any suitable programming languages
such as C, C++, Java or others. The service software modules (9)
may also use any suitable protocols such as IP based or non-IP
based protocols.
The host (1), in one embodiment could be a server, a desktop, a
laptop PC, etc., which needs to access a block data storage. The
spare host (12) represents a part of recovery scheme that could be
implemented in a CCDSVM environment.
Network infrastructure (2) can be any kind of communication links
which could be a department LAN, a corporate intranet, an Internet
infrastructure or others. In one embodiment, network infrastructure
(2) includes switches, routers, gateways, cables (Ethernet, optical
Fibre), wireless communication media, or others. The network
infrastructure (2) provides data path between hosts (1), distribute
control management station (3), and SAN Units (4). The network
infrastructure (2) also includes software infrastructure such as
DNS or DHCP for facilitating systems on the net to identifying
target addresses, which are used for sending or receiving data
within a network domain or in a cross-domain network
environment.
It should be noted that DNS and/or other Internet address
identification mechanism may be used when a message or data stream
is sent from a system A to a system B. In addition, the message is
sent from source system A to target system B via communication link
of this network infrastructure.
Control management station (3) includes distributing control
management software modules (7) and console support software
modules (8). To support web-based console, it requires the web
server software (15). The distribute control management software
modules (7) communicate with service modules (6) of IP SAN units
(4) to retrieve storage information for constructing a virtual SAN
storage pool (11). The communication between distributed control
management software modules (7) and service modules (6) of IP SAN
units (4) is further configured to monitor IP SAN unit, and to
perform various system operations, which include storage
configuration and partitioning etc. The control management software
modules (7) also communicates with service software modules (9) of
host (1) for distributing storage volumes to each hosts (1). The
distribute control management software modules (7) can be
implemented with any suitable programming languages such as C, C++,
Java, XML, etc. The communication protocols between control
management station (3) and IP SAN units (4) could be any suitable
IP based protocols. The communication between control management
station (3) and hosts (1) can be any suitable IP base or non-IP
based protocols.
The console support software modules (8) employ inter-process
communication mechanism to obtain information relating to IP SAN
units (4) from the distributed control management software modules
(7). The console support software modules (8) further provide
information to web server software (15) through the inter-process
communication mechanism. The console support software modules (8)
can be implemented with any suitable programming languages such as
C, C++, Java, XML, etc.
The web server software (15) communicates with management console
software (10) on console host (14) through web protocol such as
HTTP. The web server software (15) is configured to provide a
centralized storage management capability within the entire
distributed virtual SAN infrastructure for any end user over a
network. The web server software (15) could be commercially
available software or other proprietary software.
To simplify foregoing discussion, the communication path mentioned
above will be simply referred to as console support software
modules (8), which communicate (send/receive) with management
console (10) on console host (14) (without further mentioning the
role and function of web server software (15) on control management
station).
In addition, to support non-web based console, web server software
(15) on control management station (3) is often not required. In
this case, the console support software modules (8) could
communicate with management console software (10) with a suitable
protocol other than a web protocol such as HTTP.
The virtual storage pool (11) includes multiple IP SAN units (4),
wherein each IP SAN unit further includes service modules (6). The
IP SAN units (4) further contain storage media, storage
communications and control media. The storage hardware media of
each IP SAN unit (4) is configured to have one or more logical
volumes. Each volume, in one embodiment, is further partitioned
into several portions, as shown in FIG. 5. The IP SAN unit (4)
further contains block data services and other service software
modules (6). The service software module (6) is configured to
communicate with distribute control management station (3) for
providing storage information and for performing storage
operations. The service software modules (6), in another
embodiment, are further configured to communicate with service
software modules (9) of hosts (1) for providing block data services
for the host (1). The service software modules (6) can be
implemented by any suitable programming languages such as C, C++,
Java, etc and they may employ any suitable IP based communication
protocols for data transfer.
In one embodiment, the control management station (3) and organizes
IP SAN units (4) to form the virtual storage pool (11). The virtual
storage pool (11) may contain information relating to IP addresses,
the storage volumes of the block data, their addresses and sizes of
each IP SAN unit (4). A spare IP SAN unit (13) represents a part of
recovery scheme used in the central controlled distributed scalable
virtual machine environment.
Fibre channel to IP gateway (5) is a component that is configured
to provide translation between Fibre Channel based protocol and IP
based protocol so that Fibre Channel based SAN unit will appear as
if IP based SAN unit to the rest of the world (FIG. 1).
Fibre channel SAN unit is similar to an IP SAN unit (4) except it
uses Fibre Channel storage control, which uses Fibre Channel
protocol to communicate with other parties over the network. In
addition, Fibre Channel SAN unit appears as an IP based SAN unit to
the distributed virtual SAN once it connects to a Fibre Channel to
IP gateway (5 of FIG. 2). Therefore, to simplify the foregoing
discussion, a fibre channel SAN unit will be treated similarly as
an IP SAN unit in all of following discussion without additional
comments.
The management console on console host (14), which has been
described in pending patent of "Concurrent Web Based Multi-Task
Support for Control Management System" by the same author. The
management console could be a commercially available web browser or
a proprietary Web browser. A web browser is able to communicate
with web server software (15) on control management station (3)
through a web protocol such as HTTP. The Web browser could be
implemented by any suitable programming languages such as C, C++,
Java, XML, etc. In addition, the management console software module
(10) could be a networked software module and/or web browser
software. In this case, any other suitable network protocols can be
used instead of using web protocol such as HTTP.
To simplify the foregoing discussion, the communication path
between management console (10) on console host (14) and the
console support software modules (8) on control management station
(3) will not further mention the role or function of web server
software module (15) in this invention.
From management console (10), multiple concurrent system operations
and tasks can be performed for the entire distributed virtual SAN
infrastructure. There are may be one or more management consoles of
distributed virtual SAN infrastructure anywhere on the net.
FIG. 2 illustrates a portion of FIG. 1 relating to an actual
virtual SAN. The multiple SAN units form a virtual Storage pool
(11). The virtual storage pool (11) may contain information of each
IP SAN unit's IP address, the storage volumes and their sizes,
etc.
FIG. 3 shows a protocol of virtual SAN automatic configuration and
building as well as shutting down a virtual SAN. The packet format
used with this protocol is described in FIG. 4.
FIG. 4 shows the message format, which is used by "Virtual SAN
Automatic Configuration Protocol" for sending and receiving a
packet.
FIG. 5 illustrates a storage layout in an IP SAN unit, wherein the
storage layout may be further divided into multiple volumes and
each volume may be further divided into multiple partitions. Each
volume refers to a logical storage unit in this discussion and it
might contain multiple pieces of storage space from multiple
storage hardware media.
FIG. 6 is a simplified and a portion of FIG. 1, which shows a
hypothetical example of how hosts are configured to access the
Storage Volume of IP SAN units. Where each IP SAN unit is a portion
of virtual storage pool (11 of FIG. 2) and each host is
substantially the same as presented in FIG. 1.
FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating an In-Band Accessed Virtual
SAN. FIG. 8 shows another type of virtual SAN, wherein, the actual
storage data path from hosts to IP SAN units has to go through
control management station.
FIG. 9 is a Simplified Diagram of Central Controlled Distributed
Scalable Virtual Machine. With this invention, the systems in a
CCDSVM can be flexibly organized into multiple different service
pools according to their functionalities. For example, multiple IP
SAN units can form a virtual SAN storage pool. The hosts of CCDSVM
could form other service pools to provide services other than
storage services such as video services, security monitor services,
and all other services provided on Web (or net).
FIG. 10 is a Simplified Diagram of Disaster Recovery Scheme of
Distributed Virtual SAN Infrastructure, which includes one virtual
storage pool of multiple IP SAN units and one service pool of
multiple hosts. For example, host 1 accesses IP SAN units 1 and 2
while host 3 accesses IP SAN units 4 and 5. Also, IP SAN unit 1 and
2 are mirrored so that they have kept the same copy of data for
host 1. The same to be true for IP SAN unit 4 and 5 with host 3. In
addition, IP SAN unit 3 may be a spare unit and the host 2 could be
a spare host.
FIG. 1 shows a simplified diagram of a distributed virtual SAN
infrastructure according to the present invention. With the
distributed virtual SAN infrastructure, the distributed virtual SAN
storage pool (11) comprises one or more SAN units (4), which may be
further connected to a distribute control management station (3).
The SAN units (4) can be accessed by one or more hosts (1) via
network infrastructure (2). The entire distributed virtual SAN
infrastructure can be operated through management console (10).
The virtual storage volume pool (11) of the distributed virtual SAN
infrastructure (FIG. 1) can be initiated and updated when each of
the IP SAN units (4) is booted and brought to online. The virtual
storage volume pool (11), in one embodiment, is updated when at
least one of IP SAN unit is powered down or removed from the web
environment. FIG. 3 shows the distributed Virtual SAN Automatic
Configuration Protocol, which leads to the success of constructing
the virtual storage pool (11) of distributed virtual SAN
infrastructure (FIG. 1) according to this invention. The following
steps have described the automatic building sequence of storage
volume pool of the virtual SAN based on this protocol (FIG. 3). The
protocol described bellow could be IP based protocol such as SNMP,
or a much simple UDP protocol (FIG. 4), or any other suitable
protocols.
When any of IP SAN unit (4) such as unit (n) brought up online, SAN
service modules (6 of FIG. 2) of the IP SAN unit (4) sends out a
"SAN unit (n) startup" packet, as illustrated in FIG. 4, to
distribute control management station (3 of FIG. 1). The "SAN unit
(n) startup" packet could be a simple user defined UDP packet (FIG.
4) indicating a system just being powered up. The message carried
by the packet could also be a SNMP trap of cold start packet, or
link-up packet (4 of FIG. 1) or other short packet/message of any
suitable IP protocols.
When distribute control management modules (7 of FIG. 1) of
distribute control management station (3 of FIG. 1) receives IP SAN
unit (n)'s message, it stores the IP SAN unit (n)'s
information.
After storing information of the IP SAN unit, the control
management modules (7 of FIG. 1) on distribute control management
station (3 of FIG. 1) sends back a "need SAN unit (n)'s storage
info" packet to IP SAN unit (n) (4 of FIG. 1).
When SAN service modules (6 of FIG. 1) on IP SAN unit (n) (4 of
FIG. 1) receive the packet of "need SAN unit (n)'s storage info",
they obtain the storage information on the IP SAN unit (n) (4 of
FIG. 1), which may include the number of storage volumes, each
volume's starting address (logical block address, LBA), length, and
the end address (logical block address, LBA). The SAN service
modules (6 of FIG. 1) then send back a packet of "unit (n) storage
info", which may include all information obtained from the control
management station (3 of FIG. 1).
After receiving the "unit (n) storage info" packet from IP SAN unit
(n) (4 of FIG. 1), the distribute control management modules (7 of
FIG. 1) on distribute control management station (3 of FIG. 1)
update the stored information of virtual storage pool (11 of FIG.
1) with corresponding storage information of IP SAN unit (n) from
packet.
When any one of IP SAN unit (n) is shutting down, the service
module (6 of FIG. 1) of the IP SAN unit (n) (4 of FIG. 1) sends a
"Unit (n) shutdown" message to the distribute control management
station (3 of FIG. 1). This shutdown message could be an SNMP trap
of link down, or a simple UDP packet (FIG. 4) with message type of
system down, or other short packet based on some other
protocols.
After receipt of the "unit (n) shutdown" packet from IP SAN unit
(n) (4 of FIG. 1), the distribute control management modules (7 of
FIG. 1) on distribute control management station (3 of FIG. 1)
update information of the virtual storage pool (11 of FIG. 1) which
is specific to the IP SAN unit (n) (4 of FIG. 1).
After one or more IP SAN units (4 of FIG. 1) are online, the
control management station (3 of FIG. 1) obtains and/or stores
information relating to storage volumes and networking protocols
for every IP SAN unit (4 of FIG. 1) in the virtual storage pool (11
of FIG. 1). Therefore, the control management station (3 of FIG. 1)
is able to distributed storage volumes to hosts (1 of FIG. 1) in
several steps.
First, the host 1 (1 of FIG. 1) sends a request to control
management station (3 of FIG. 1) requesting a storage space, such
as 80 GB (gigabyte) of storage. Second, the control management
station (3 of FIG. 1) stores host 1 information and searches for
availability of 80 GB of storage volume. The control management
station (3), for example, finds an 80 GB available storage volume
in volume 2 of the IP SAN unit M (FIG. 6). Third, the control
management station (3 of FIG. 1) sends the requested information of
host 1 to IP SAN unit M (FIG. 6), wherein the requested information
includes the IP address of host 1 and the requested storage size.
The control management station (3 of FIG. 1) also sends the storage
volume information relating to the IP SAN unit M to host 1 (1 of
FIG. 1), wherein the storage volume information includes the IP
address of IP SAN unit M, the volume number and the size, the
volume's starting address, and volume's ending logical address
block (LBA). Therefore, all parties of threes namely the control
management station (3) and host 1 and the IP SAN unit M, keep the
same storage volume assignment information. Fourth, once the host 1
(1 of FIG. 1) and IP SAN unit M (FIG. 6) get each other's
information, the host (1 of FIG. 1) can directly and independently
access the volume 2 on IP SAN unit M immediately and the IP SAN
unit M, in one embodiment, is further configured to perform
security checking in light of storage accessing.
Alternatively, The above described steps may also be
semi-automatically setup with assisting of system operations
performed by the management console (10 of FIG. 1). For example, an
administrator could initially setup volume 2 of IP SAN unit M (FIG.
6) to be exclusively accessed by host 1 (1 of FIG. 1) as long as
the administrator acknowledges that host 1 needs such size of
storage volume. The administrator can also setup the host 1 with
all information needed to access volume 2 of IP SAN unit M (FIG.
6). Finally, the host 1 (1 of FIG. 1) can access volume 2 of IP SAN
unit M (FIG. 6) directly without going through the control
management station (3 of FIG. 1).
The present invention also discloses a mechanism of dynamically
expanding storage capacity. After the distributed virtual SAN
storage pool (11 of FIG. 1) is initiated, the host (1 of FIG. 1)
will be able to access the volume of an IP SAN unit (4 of FIG. 1)
in the pool (11 of FIG. 1) directly without further involvement of
the control management station (3 of FIG. 1). This will allow the
storage pool (11 of FIG. 1) of this distributed virtual SAN
infrastructure (FIG. 1) to continue expanding without affecting any
hosts (1 of FIG. 1) to continue accessing the storage volumes on
assigned IP SAN units (4 of FIG. 1) in the pool. As a result, this
guarantees that the distributed virtual SAN storage pool (11 of
FIG. 2) can be dynamically expanded without interrupting any normal
storage operations and accessing of entire distributed virtual SAN
storage pool (11 of FIG. 2).
The present invention further discloses a technique of system
scalability. Once the distributed virtual SAN storage pool (11 of
FIG. 1) is constructed, each host (1 of FIG. 1) can access one or
more IP SAN units (4 of FIG. 1) in the storage pool (11 of FIG. 1)
of the distributed virtual SAN infrastructure (FIG. 1) whenever it
requests. For example, host 1 (FIG. 6) can access IP SAN unit 1,
unit 2, and unit M (FIG. 6) after the host (1) requests an access
to the IP SAN units and subsequently, the control management
station (3 of FIG. 1) grants the request. This effectively provides
scalable storage system for each hosts (1 of FIG. 1) within
distributed virtual SAN infrastructure (FIG. 1) of this invention.
Further, the distributed virtual SAN infrastructure (FIG. 1)
provides far better scalability than the in-band accessed virtual
SAN (FIG. 8), wherein the scalability of in-band accessed virtual
SAN were severely limited by the bottlenecked control management
station (FIG. 8).
The present invention also discloses a method of storage sharing
mechanism. Once the distributed virtual SAN storage pool (11 of
FIG. 1) is constructed, each IP SAN unit (4 of FIG. 1) in the pool
of distributed virtual SAN infrastructure (FIG. 1) may hold
multiple storage volumes in the form of block data, which can be
accessed by one or more hosts (1 of FIG. 1). Therefore, it allows
multiple hosts (1 of FIG. 1) to share an IP SAN unit (4 of FIG. 1)
by granting and assigning each host to exclusively access
particular volumes on that IP SAN unit (4 of FIG. 1). The FIG. 6
demonstrates such a storage sharing, wherein IP SAN unit (2 of FIG.
6) has three volumes, which named volume 1, volume 2, and volume 3.
The block data service modules (6 of FIG. 1) on IP SAN unit (2 of
FIG. 6) allows volume 1 to be accessed exclusively by host1 while
volume 2 to be accessed exclusively by host 2.
With in-band accessed virtual SAN (FIG. 8), the control management
station could be a performance bottleneck. With distributed virtual
SAN of this inventions each host (1 of FIG. 1) can directly and
independently access any IP SAN unit (4 of FIG. 1). Therefore, the
performance of storage accessing for each host will not be affected
and can match the performance of direct attached storage system
(FIG. 7) when the high speed network connecting media is deployed
in the distributed virtual SAN infrastructure (FIG. 1).
The present invention also illustrates a method of a centralized
management of distributed virtual SAN. The storage management
console on a console host (10 of FIG. 1) can communicate with
console support software module (8 of FIG. 1) on a control
management station (3 of FIG. 1). The storage management console is
configured to further receive information relating to all IP SAN
units (4) from control management modules (7 of FIG. 1) of control
management station (3 of FIG. 1). Therefore, it provides
centralized management functionality for entire distributed virtual
SAN storage pool (11 of FIG. 1), hosts (1 of FIG. 1), and the
control management station itself (3 of FIG. 1). With multiple
concurrent tasks controlled by the console support software module
(8 of FIG. 1) of control management station (3 of FIG. 1), the
storage management support console (10 of FIG. 1) can provide a
full range of system operations and tasks. In addition, multiple
system tasks and operations can be run concurrently throughout the
entire distributed virtual SAN and hosts. These management tasks
include storage configuration, storage volume allocation and
assignment, storage partitioning and repartitioning, storage,
network, and other resource usage and activity monitoring.
In one embodiment, the present invention discloses a process of
disaster recovery capabilities. The use of DNS or an IP address
identification mechanism helps this distributed virtual SAN
infrastructure to overcome the geometric (region) limitation, and
works well in a cross network domain environment or in a single
network domain environment. Therefore, any IP SAN unit or host as
well as a control management station could be anywhere on the
corporate Intranet, department LAN, or Internet. As a result, the
present invention can be used for an emergency or a disaster
recovery plan because the distributed virtual SAN infrastructure
increases logical range by 100 miles as oppose to the traditional
10-kilometer limitation.
In addition, the disaster recovery plan of distributed virtual SAN
infrastructure can be flexibly implemented as showing in FIG. 10.
With this recovery plan, the host 1 or 3 (1 of FIG. 10) can
continue to operate even if one of its mirrored IP SAN units failed
(3 of FIG. 10). Also, the spare IP SAN unit can be used to quickly
replace the failed IP SAN unit whenever there is a need. On the
other hand, the hosts (1 of FIG. 10) also can be organized into a
service pool for providing special services such as distributing
video services, distributed database pool, distributed security
monitor services, and all other services provided on the net or the
Web. Therefore, whenever host 1 or 3 failed, the spare host can
quickly take over their assigned IP SAN storage and replace them to
continue providing services provide service to the end user.
It should be noted that the storage of any IP SAN unit can be
shared and accessed by multiple hosts. To scale a virtual storage,
a host may be assigned to access multiple volumes of storage
capacities from multiple IP SAN units. In one embodiment, the
storage accessing goes directly through communication link between
hosts and SAN units, which means that it is an out-band access. An
advantage of using the present invention is that it has better
performance and scalability than that in-band accessed virtual SAN.
Furthermore, the present invention allows the virtual storage pool
to expand dynamically through adding more IP SAN units into the
pool without interrupting systems operation.
The implementation of web-based multi-concurrent tasks allows
entire distributed virtual SAN infrastructure to be managed and
monitored from a centralized console. Also, the IP based
distributed virtual SAN infrastructure is a new type of central
controlled distributed scalable virtual machine (CCDSVM). The
software modules used in IP based distributed virtual SAN
infrastructure are web-based operating system models. Furthermore,
the methods and principles of the IP based distributed virtual SAN
storage pool, which may automatic build and deliver storage
services to the end users or clients on-demand bases. The present
invention can also apply to various data distribution services
within the CCDSVM infrastructure.
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